Juco WRs Ezra Naylor and Andrew Parchment commit to KU football

Les Miles’ first recruiting class at Kansas already had a running back and a quarterback. On Sunday afternoon it gained not one, but two receivers.

Two of several prospects in Lawrence this weekend to visit KU, check out the football facilities and take in a basketball game at Allen Fieldhouse, Ezra Naylor and Andrew Parchment, both receivers from Iowa Central Community College, verbally committed to Miles and KU.

Naylor, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound wideout, was the first to make his pledge public via Twitter. Posted with a photo of Naylor wearing a blue Kansas football jersey and a Jayhawks head band, he tweeted: “No colors I’d rather be in.”

While thanking KU’s staff for its hospitality on his visit, Naylor added in his post, “There’s something special brewing in Lawrence, Kan., and I can’t wait to be a part of it. With that being said I’m all in.”

Rivals rates Naylor as a three-star junior college prospect.

A Kennesaw State signee out of high school, the Atlanta native just completed his redshirt sophomore season at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Naylor finished the 2018 season with 19 receptions, 292 yards and a touchdown.

In 2017, as a redshirt freshman at Kennesaw State, Naylor played in all 14 games and finished with two receptions for 26 yards.

Parchment also announced his plans to sign with KU on Twitter, following Naylor’s lead a few hours later.

“For the next two years, I will be attending the University of Kansas," the redshirt sophomore receiver wrote.

Rated a two-star juco receiver by Rivals, Parchment is listed at 6-2 and 185 pounds. Originally from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., his college football career began at Northern Illinois. Parchment took a redshirt in 2016. In his debut season of 2017, he played in nine games and made one catch for six yards.

During his most recent season, at the juco level, although he didn’t play in Iowa Central’s final five games, Parchment made 23 receptions for 227 yards and scored two touchdowns.

Through his most recent round of recruitment, the Class of 2016 Northern Illinois signee reportedly picked up offers from Southern Miss, Hawaii, Iowa State, Colorado State and other programs.

With the commitments from Naylor and Parchment, KU’s 2019 recruiting class grew to six, as the receiving duo joined juco QB Thomas MacVittie and three high school prospects — defensive back Jayden Russell, running back Cole Mueller and athlete Mason Fairchild.

All verbal commitments, of course, are nonbinding. College football’s early signing period for the Class of 2019 runs Wednesday through Friday.

Miles stated previously he expects to have somewhere around 15 players in his first recruiting class.

While some recruits will choose to sign this week, others can wait until National Signing Day, on Feb. 6.

No colors i’d rather be in! Thank you to the staff that treated my family like theirs all weekend. There’s something special brewing in Lawrence KS, & I can’t wait to be a part of it. With that being said I’M ALL IN! 🔻🔹 #COMMITTED

I find it interesting that you didn't do your research and spend 500 words criticizing this kid like you did the last one. A true KU fan are you.

Since this concept is a little complex for you to understand, I'll explain it slowly. The best way out of the Beaty sinkhole may be to bring in a good number of JUCO kids this year. Since Beaty had no recruits on board, the new staff had exactly three weeks to try and mostly fill a recruiting class. They'll need to go where they need to go to flesh out the roster with this class - they weren't left with many options by the inept previous head coach (recruiting guru from Texas, you may recall).

Because of the upcoming Beaty sinkhole, Miles might be better off taking a good number of short-term players, instead of acting in desperation and filling the roster with four-year players who might not be able to contribute long-haul. This would give him a roster for the next two years and a full-year run at high school recruiting next year.

It's complex, I know, but context is important in understanding things in this world. Situational response is also important.

Everyone knows that Beaty left a mess, now we have a coach and staff who can find a way out of it.

Brett, I find your rationale extremely hilarious. Beaty had a sinkhole left by previous administration that went all the way to China. Every football team brings in some Juco’s. We had some needs that a 4 year player would have taken too long to develop, which is precisely why Beaty went after some Juco’s in year 3. Your very rationale exonerates Beaty. As far as leaving 1 recruit for this year, NOBODY was going to commit with his name on the chopping block and uncertainty on who the new coach would be. Mike Hart wasn’t complaining that we are recruiting some Juco talent, he made a comment(and a true comment at that), that you all screamed to the heavens when Beaty brought in Juco’s and are completely fine with Miles doing so. Double standards!!!!!!! With that said, stats again don’t jump out at you on this receiver, but 6’4 is a tall receiver. Let’s hope the staff in place recognizes talent and can develop it. In the past, the story on these recruits usually would state what other colleges were recruiting said individual. Was anybody else pursuing this receiver or the Juco quarterback?

It's NOT a double standard, Steven. JUCOs in a first year is different than when you're recruiting JUCOs in year three. The latter means you're not good at developing the high school talent you brought in. And surprise! That fits with exactly what we saw from Beaty's players; namely, that he couldn't develop them. If Miles is still bringing in recruits in year 3 and 4 like Beaty was, then "yes"...we have a huge problem.

Joe - Definitely agree with you about the difference in year 1 vs. later JUCO recruiting, but not so much after "the latter means". I realize it's part of the anti-Beaty mantra, but it just is not historically accurate. Look at the players receiving award recognition. Aside from Pooka this year, and Lee his freshman year, none of the players were highly ranked players. They have all been developed, and developed well. It is why Miles said we aren't far away.

IMO the real reason Beaty wasn't retained is the same reason we were losing many of the games, and more HS recruits weren't coming. It is the game management. Not sure what was going on financially in the athletic department except that they were trying to get out from under back to back $M salary bombs (1 from Zenger, 1 from Lou), so they rolled the dice on an unproven assistant willing to do a HC job for an assistant's salary on the hope that he'd develop into a HC. The HC development didn't happen, but the player development did.

Once again, Brett ... you miss the point entirely. I have never once criticized the recruit... just like I never criticized any previous recruits. I am not even criticizing the new staff for recruiting these guys. I am only critical of the hypocrisy of ripping each and every recruiting decision made by previous staff ... and then nothing but kudos for each and every coaching decision on the first few recruits signed by this staff. As for true KU fans... I watched each and every game this year. It was you who bailed on all tickets and gave up on the team prior to the season event STARTING. So spare me the lecture. And the Beaty “sinkhole” regarding the roster has already been debunked by Les Miles himself who said the ciurrent roster is already “close” to being a winner.

You're correct about the talent on the team, Mike. This is a good squad, and this last year, we had the capability of playing around .500 ball in the Big 12. Except for two main issues; the starting QB wasn't good enough, and the HC was poor when it came to calling a game.

However, this is all vastly overshadowed by two other factors much higher in the KU food chain;

1) First of all, we hired blanks in the AD position twice in a row; Perkins and Zenger. The last two Chancellors have to take responsibility for both those hires, even if they lent on others for help in those decisions. Therefore we wind up with disaster on the field via Gill, Weis and Beaty.

2) Secondly, failure to correctly ascertain the importance of football to KU as an institution. This led to the program being vastly underfunded throughout the last 10 years at minimum. The responsibility lies primarily with the last two AD's for not forcing greater funding from the university. Yes, we could also include the Chancellors in the blame with some valid criticism.

It's only now with Girod and Long that we're beginning to see how a winning program can be established here at KU. Of course, we haven't won anything yet, but it won't be for the lack of a large enough budget for the people on the field. The heck with a new Stadium!

"Naylor finished the 2018 season with 19 receptions, 292 yards and a touchdown."

Those are very underwhelming numbers if we are being honest. Naylor's only other offers came from Stony Brook University and Bowling Green. He looks the part, and I'm happy to have him on board, but I'm not jumping out of my socks for this one.

That said, I'm very optimistic and can't wait to see some other announcements before or on Wednesday for signing day!

Beatty is in the past. Weis is in the past. It's just a waste of breath (or in this case electrons) to discuss them anymore. I trust HCLM. I trust that he knows what he's doing and has been around the block a few times. I also trust that he and his staff will be able to attract really great student-athletes this year and the years to come.

Matt - The one thing that was missing from Benton's article came out in an few days later. Each class has 4 - 6 players that could take redshirts.

If we have 53 on scholia now, and add 15, we're playing next year with at least 68, or close to what we had this year. It could go up with a few blueshirts. If a few of the Jr's from last year redshirt, we could have at least 68 again for the next year (2), and then close to the average of 78 or more in year 3. By year 4 we could have a full roster without utilizing walk-ons or blue shirts. Year 2 or 3 with them.

l don't expect alot from this class, even with the Miles name l dont think that too many recruits will decommit from their current school (who probably have build relationships with the recruits and efforts for a couple years). Not too many are going to just say ok I'll go to Kansas now that Les is there. Maybe able to get one or two. Hear an LSU LB commit is down to LSU and KU. Beaty choice to go JUCO was A. high school kids weren't interested in KU, B. Beaty had holes to fill and quick, C. Beaty was hoping more experienced players would help with his win total. A class should have maybe 5 or 6 quality JUCOs, NOT more than half the class that year. You cant teach 6'4" We'll see what this coaching staff can do next year with a whole year to scout, recruit, and prove their muster with wins on the field or having a more competitive team. Winning with alot of Beatys recruits besides Pooka might be difficult early on. This coaching staff has to undo what the previous staff has done. Hoping for the best.

Did we have more than 50% JC recruits? This last year might have been an exception with all the blue shirts. That being said, the blueshirts were pretty successful this year when I believe the entire OL was current or former blueshirts.

As far as undoing what the former staff did, it would appear that Les doesn't agree with you. It would appear that Les realizes Beaty was let go because of game management and not all the other negative mantras, which is why he says we're close.

The other bit of good news counter-point is that we don't need to have players decommit. There are over 20 uncommitted players that we have offered that are better than our current highest rated recruit. Lots of options still available.

Frankly people
What I am looking for is which Juco player is being recruited. 1) is he going to start because there is a clear cut need, 2) does the offense take advantage of what skills he has to offer.
3) Does he improve as a player, (even Jucos) while he is at KU. 4) the number of Jucos is decreasing by the year.

Layne, if what you say is true....that the number of Juco’s decreases by year, then eventually you never recruit a Juco again after several years. Almost every, if not every college recruits Juco’s, so that is not a completely accurate statement...although you have the praises of Joe and the other Beaty haters. As far as the rest of your comments, I agree with them, however, not sure that the Juco quarterback or Juco receiver will start or even contribute. You never have any guarantees with them. Shoot, we had a couple of non-Juco transfers from Alabama and one is no longer with us and the other hasn’t produced much. You can say all you want about him not being “developed” from the misfit staff we had, but I don’t buy it. We had some pretty good starting receivers this year, maybe, just maybe he wasn’t good enough to crack the starting rotation. Point is, it’s always a gamble with Juco’s AND high school kids. Not every one of them is a home run

Personally, I'd like to say I would have been just as underwhelmed if this had been a Beatty recruiting class as I am with it being with it being a Miles recruiting class. Well maybe not quite as much. Thought the stud pick as Miles is supposed to be would have done better.

These are tricky...I know JUCO usually are not always the optimal choices. I've been very concerned and i'm hoping that there are a limited amount. I'm guessing if the class was 15 total, that about 3-5 would be JUCOs just based on what would have been setup by Beaty and company and just a few holes that might need some depth. I'm hoping really hoping that about 10-12 would be High School In reality I wish that about 17-20 were high school.

A 6'4" receiver is nice to have and so is the #1 JUCO QB, although neither of them were crazy numbers; however, that's why the Mad Hatter has arrived.

I'm not crazy about the JUCOs, but I was also not fond of waiting to hire Les Miles. Think if he was here in August or September...tracking down players; instead of inheriting one player.

Need some DL beef. Defense is going to really suck next year and it was bad last year. As far as Juco's go, there is no reason to abandon them. If you have a class of 25, no reason you can't have 5. Unfortunately, he's only going to get 15 recruits this year. Hope he makes them count. What I look at is who else offered the player, not just who else is recruiting them. Just because they list an Alabama, OU to UT as someone recruiting them doesn't mean those schools offered. Hell, an introductory letter qualifies as recruiting. I like to check rivals and see who actually offered because let's face, we've never seen these guys play.

Not sure I agree that defense was bad last year and that it's going to suck next year. Statistically Kansas was about middle of the pack as a total defense last year. The secondary was actually a lot better and they had some young guys who are returning. Linebackers played well and return a bunch of guys as well. Defensive line loses several key players but they were also the weakest level of the defense last year in my opinion.

I seriously doubt if Coach can bring in players with a much greater upside than those we have currently with this class. But what I am convinced of is our offense will be more efficiently operated by this staff. Our defense will play soundly and the kids will not only have their skills developed but the game plans and the efficiency with which they are carried out should improve.
If we still look like we haven't practiced all year when the seasons starts next year, we will know there is some particular curse on this program.

Agree Jim, I will say I thought the defense kept Kansas in a lot of games. The offense always seemed to be a total cluster at critical times. A team that forced as many turnovers as Kansas did should have won a lot more games. Offense just could never sustain drives or score in the red area.

I agree that we need some defensive linemen, defensive ends, and linebackers. Maybe there are some redshirts, or offensive linemen that didn’t see many reps that can convert to defense, but it appears to be slim pickings. If we just play sound ball and play hard, we should be able to squeak out three wins next year